27 AOUT 2018: Yorkshire - Louisbourg - Tappeh Ashraf - Yakutia -

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ROYAUME UNI – Yorkshire - One of the earliest Roman settlements ever to be discovered in the Yorkshireregion has been unearthed by a group of crowdfunded archaeologists. The exact location of the high-status settlement has been kept a secret to protect it The first sign that there may be something worth exploring at the site came three years ago when some metal detectorists uncovered a hoard of 2,000-year-old silver coins. Friends found the hoard of 18 silver coins in 2015, but the discovery has been kept secret until now, to enable archaeologists to explore the area, which appears to be a high-status Roman settlement. Last week more silver coins were uncovered, with hundreds of Roman pottery sherds and a tiny brooch, found on one of three neonatal burials. Lisa Westcott Wilkins, who has been managing the excavation, said: “This is one of the earliest Roman settlements in the north that we have discovered to date.The finds so far date from the 1st century, she added: “All the coins date back to the time of the emperor Vespasian [AD 69–79], when the Romans marched north and established a centre at York.“Some of the items we have found have been very exciting. These people were burying infants with jewellery – there was a beautiful brooch – which would have been for a cloak. This suggests to us that it was high status.” She added: “It is such a rare find. We have many settlements from later periods – 3rd and 4th centuries – but this one is much earlier and much higher status. This is why it is so rare.”

CANADA – Louisbourg - Researchers are working against the clock to dig up 300-year-old human remains before they're washed away by the sea — and the project lead says what they found so far could give us a new perspective on what life was like in the 18th century. Experts say there could be as many as a thousand bodies buried at Rochefort Point, the main burial site at Cape Breton's Fortress of Louisbourg, once a popular seaport and the site of two sieges between the French and the British in the 1700s..This year, the students unearthed the remains of 31 people, and Scott said most of the remains were male, as men — many of them soldiers — greatly outnumbered women at the site in the 1700s. The average age of death was 24. Last year, the group only found adult remains, but this year they uncovered six child burials, which suggests they may have found a new section of the centuries-old graveyard. Scott explained the French primarily used the graveyard for their soldiers, but the New Englanders used it for both soldiers and civilians — including children. She added that child mortality in those times was quite high. "Life was tough at Louisbourg for the adults, and even more so for the children," she said. Many of the remains show signs of blunt force trauma and fractures on their faces and hands, suggesting quite a bit of brawling went on at the fortress during the tumultuous time in Canadian history.

IRAN – Tappeh Ashraf - The Public Relations Office of the Research Institute of Cultural Heritage and Tourism (RICHT) quoted Alireza Jaafari Zand, head of the archeology team, as saying on Saturday that after a delay of three years, the sixth exploration season was conducted upon a permit received from the head of the RICHT with the focus on the southwest side.Despite the seven hectares span of Tappeh Ashraf, the points for the drilling of the boreholes were selected based on the understanding of the relationship between the architectural spheres of the northern side with that of the southern side of the hill and chronology of the hill was also on the agenda, he noted.This archeologist referred to pieces of illustrated pottery belonging to the third century BC as one of the most important findings in the past seasons of archeological explorations.He added that due to the disturbed position of the layers where the pottery pieces were discovered, the team was looking for an intact layer in order to study the type of the pottery in the layer of the mentioned period.Referring to the drilling of a well outside the wall of the hill in the second exploration season for the construction of a sewage well for the sanitary containers located on the southwest side of the hill, jaafari said in that place several pieces of illustrated pottery dating back to the third century BC were discovered.According to him, for this same reason the focus of the archeology team in the sixth exploration season was on the area around the well and exploration operations began by digging a 10x10 trench.He went on to say that in the depth of 210 cm on the northern wall of the trench, there appeared remains of a damaged adobe wall of which four rows of adobes were in place with 40x40x10 adobes which were not observed in the previous seasons.“Therefore”, he added, “We came across a new phenomenon in Tappeh Ashraf which is very important in the chronology of the hill.”He reiterated that although the details of its architecture is not known and needs further explorations in the coming seasons, this in itself reflects the diversity of the type of architecture and diversity in the materials used in the architecture of Tappeh Ashraf.Jaafari emphasized that since this finding has not precedence in the city of Isfahan, it is highly important in the study of the architectural history of the city.According to the archeologist, the illustrated pottery fragments which have been discovered in the area could help chronology of the works on Tappeh Ashraf.In conclusion, he said the pottery fragments which have been discovered in the exploration operations date back to the third century BC up to the end of the Sassanid era which indicates that the southern side of Tappeh Ashraf had not been taken into consideration in the Islamic era.

RUSSIE – Yakutia -The astonishingly intact body of a young foal that died between 30,000 and 40,000 years ago was recently unearthed from melting permafrost in Siberia. Its mummified remains were so well-preserved by icy conditions that the skin, the hooves, the tail, and even the tiny hairs in the animal's nostrils and around its hooves are still visible. Paleontologists found the mummified body of the young horse inside the 328-foot-deep (100 meters) Batagaika crater during an expedition to Yakutia in eastern Siberia.Remarkably, the body is whole and undamaged and measures about 39 inches (98 centimeters) tall at the shoulder, according to The Siberian Times. Scientists collected samples of the foal's hair and tissue for testing, and the researchers will investigate the animal's bowel contents to determine the young horse's diet. Wild horses still populate Yakutia today, but the foal belonged to an extinct species that lived in the region 30,000 to 40,000 years ago, Grigoryev told The Siberian Times. Known as the Lena horse (Equus caballus lenensis), that ancient species was genetically distinct from modern horses in the region, Grigoryev said.